The Future of Education

In a globalised and interdependent world, characterized by new technologies, migration, environmental and societal challenges, preparing youngsters for work, citizenship and life is a priority for formal and non-formal education. Addressing Global Citizenship concepts such as human rights, peace, social inclusion, democracy, using a powerful and effective learning tool as Digital Storytelling (DS), enhances the social and civic competences of youngsters while, at the same time, fosters their critical thinking, creativity, cyber and media literacy. Practitioners of DS explain the potential for students to develop enhanced communication skills as they learn to conduct research on a topic, ask questions, organize their ideas, express opinions, construct meaningful narratives and, finally, create their digital story. However, in order for educators to be able to organize and support Global Citizenship Education (GCE) initiatives applying DS technique with their students, specific training is required. In this paper we present a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on the topics of GCE and DS that targets educators and trainers. The educational design of the course aims to effectively address methodological, social and technical issues concerning the implementation of GCE using DS, in two diverse contexts, schools and non-formal education. The MOOC has been developed in the context of the BRIGHTS EU project. Based on a micro-MOOC format, the course consists of 4 weekly modules offered in five languages (English, Greek, Italian, Croatian, Dutch). The educational content is licensed under CC and includes video lectures, readings, Open Educational Resources and self-assessment quizzes. The course was actively facilitated by National tutors in four European countries (Italy, Greece, Croatia, Belgium) and it was successfully completed by more that 300 learners who received a Certificate of Achievement. The MOOC has been assessed using a pre-test and a post-test survey. The former assessment recorded the profile and expectations of the learners prior to their engagement with the course while the latter, assessed the actual impact of the learning process. Other parameters such as the instructional design, educational effect and course usability were also evaluated.

Keywords: MOOC, Global Citizenship Education, Digital Storytelling, Evaluation;